1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information presentation system, an information presentation terminal and a server for presenting information pertinent to an image obtained from an imaging unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been disclosed a technique in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2003-15980, in which a server uses a taken image of a logo to find a corresponding URL. In other words, in this technique, a logo mark contained in an advertisement printed in, for example, a magazine is first photographed with a portable device. Then, the logo mark acquired by this photography is sent to a search server via the Internet. The search server searches for a logo mark closest to the logo mark sent via the Internet. The search server then sends a URL corresponding to the logo mark that has been searched for, to the portable device via the Internet. The portable device accesses the URL so that a homepage can be viewed.
There has been disclosed another technique, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2004-179783, in which an ID is read by a portable client device in such a manner that a user is unconscious of the kind of the ID. In other words, in this technique, the portable client device first acquires an image with a camera or scanner. The portable client device then extracts an ID from the image regardless of whether this image is a one-dimensional barcode, two-dimensional barcode, electronic-watermarked image or normal image. Further, the portable client device wirelessly transmits the ID to an external ID information database. The portable client device wirelessly receives information from the ID information database.
On the other hand, as a method of judging the degree of correspondence between two images, the following method has been disclosed by Yasushi Kanazawa and Kenichi Kanatani, in “Automatic search by correspondence of characteristic points between two images”, IMAGE LAB, pp. 20-23, November 2004 (Japan Industrial Publishing). First, characteristic points as recognition elements in an input image and a comparative image are extracted. Then, the characteristic point in the input image is compared with the characteristic point in the comparative image. In this comparison between the characteristic points, a method such as RANSAC is used to judge whether the value of similarity between the images exceeds a threshold value set to a predetermined value as a satisfaction of data.